The recent BBC article and interview with Seth Shostak is interesting because, among other things, it questions whether we're looking for the right kind of signal. Any civilisation following a similar technological path to our own will only be detectable by our radio telescopes for a limited period whilst they're using high-power omnidirectional radio to communicate around their planet. If they follow our path, then within 100 years they will switch to using lower-energy more efficient point-to-point communications, or they'll use fibre-optic. If true, that greatly lowers the odds of finding them by using a radio telescope.

From an earlier post by the staff at Berkely, they recognize this and think that the best bet for SETI@Home is to find deliberately radiated signals, "here we are" kind of a thing. Berkeley is also pursuing other methods of detecting intelligence life out there, besides S@H. Take a look at http://seti.berkeley.edu/

Actually SETI is looking for Intelligence, "life" has already been proven to exist in the form of bacteria.
Obviously you're having trouble exhibiting what they are looking for.No insult intended

I have not seen this evidence of bacteria outside our planet. Do you have a reference? I would like to study it myself.

As to the comment on "waste of time". I have to say I very much disagree on that. Seeking life and intelligence in the universe is a great goal. And I think its very arrogant to assume 50 years is a long time in the scale our galaxy operates at.

For all we know intelligence could have evolved another place a long time ago, or recently. Their radio bubble could not yet have reached us, or maybe even passed by and gone. We do not know. Its an ongoing quest to seek out, and I for one support the effort! :)

Here is a real life account of an event that happened in 1990. It was during the charleville floods, Queensland, Auastralia. I was part of a respnse group sent out there to help with the evacuations. Around 11:45 pm one night I was awoken by the radar operater who was monitoring the airspace. A kich in the guts wakes you up fast. He pointed to a target on the screen and said watch it. I have to get the commanding officer. So I did he came back after 2 or 3 minuts with his commanding officer. The target was still on the screen. I have never seen anything before that had tha ability to change course as this one did. Four f111's were enroute from an airfoce base to the east to another base to the north of our location. They were ordered to change course and get a visual of the target, Twelve minutes later over the radio came a report that the UFO was nearly within visual range. Thirty seconds later the object changed course and climbed rapidly. According to the radar the object was climbung at an estimated 45 thousand feet per minute. it dissapeared from radar after about 10 seconds later. This is just one of many sightings around that time and area.

Are we alone I truly believe not, when you see something like what I saw on radar it changes your perspective on what is out there.

I was watching a radar we were repairing when an SR-71 Blackbird took off. We saw three blips, one when he left the runway, one about the middle of the screen, the third barely hit the edge of the screen. It was set to 150 mile range.

Here’s my take on the big question - and it may explain why we are being ignored.

1. There is extraterrestrial life - everything from bacteria to those whose intelligence far surpasses ours.

2. There are races whose technology is thousands of years, or much-more, in advance of ours.

3. Not all such races live on a cliché, ‘Home world.’ A planet is a dangerous place and is why I monitor the news about Yellowstone Caldera or for NEO’s.

4. Because of this they may have built ships that are hundreds and perhaps thousands on miles in length/diameter with an environment that equals and perhaps surpasses that of a, 'planet.'

5. Perhaps they have even forgotten their roots/home-world.

6. There may be ships that have been genetically engineered within which the crew, enjoy a symbiotic relationship with this living, thinking ship. There may be relationships where the ship is the master with the crew fulfilling the same needs as our blood cells and white cells. For a parallel take our Police Forces – are they not the white cells of society? The politics of the ship would resemble anatomy.

7. They chose not to contact us because such a revelation would destroy us. Where we would demand their science and in doing so – remove any-and-all motivation to pursue the quest for knowledge, it would leave us with no more metaphorical mountains to climb. And what if they refused to give us these answers, these secrets and mysteries that we have built our intellects on?

8. Then we would hate them! But this hate would have begun already when we quickly realized that their intellect towered above ours. It would be an unacceptable blow to our fragile racial pride.

9. Our religions would implode. The question of, ‘What church do they go to?’ in one form or another may result in someone attempting to assassinate one of them – and then what?

10. And... the Stock Markets would collapse in this very uncertain future.

11. Open contact was made in the past, a past that called a, ‘Close encounter of the third kind,’ a miracle or visitation from angels, and so they gave us religion.

12. Our various religions were created by them and given to us. We weren’t obeying our own man-made laws so they put on a firework’s display of thunder and lightning, performed some, ‘miracles,’ and threatened, ‘Hell fire and damnation,’ and there you have it! A well-ordered society.

13. But this only works when the society’s level of technology and sophistication is Bronze Age, today it wouldn’t work.

14. And why would they go to all this trouble? Because of all the wonders and mysteries in this universe, that of intelligent life is the most magnificent.

15. I sincerely hope that if another, "WOW!" signal (or better) is found by SETI or some other, that it is kept very secret indeed - for all the foregoing reasons.

Hi Newfie.... I mean Hairball. Welcome to SETI. I guess the first thing to learn is this is not a section we normally chat in. Number Crunching is for most of your questions and Cafe SETI is where we just hang out and play. Come on over to either one and visit for awhile.

Is SETI turning its ear to Gliese d, tusn out to be in the habitable zone around Gliese, however that planet having a permanent day and nite side, that might make it too hot for life to develop in the day side and the oposite holds true for the night side too. Nevertheless, if Gliese d turns out to have a dense atmosphere like Earth or Venus, then the greenhouse affect along with aerosols, along with water, might make life possible. Astronomers might want to look for chemical signatures such as mathane, and high levels of oxygen, nitrogen in the atmosphere of Gliese d. Gliese is a dwarf star, its fusion process of burning hydrongen into nitrogen is much slower than a Sun type star, a G star; and Gliese like the Sun seems to be stable star also, which is good news for life, since any high leves of radiation is not good for any life. Any thoughs on my comment, thank you.

if you did not exist you could not say we are alone. some thing is there to find. Our knowleage of earth seem to be affected by things that can not be exsplaned, pictures all over earth in cave all showing simularitys of air borne craft, these drawings by people that had no way of contacting each other to tell what they should draw. Flying was just for birds and the gods the shape of the craft were all very a like across the world. i dont think we are the first life but if we are hope the rest are better than we are we are distroying our home the only one we have

It depends by what mean existence and intelligence. What we imagine to be existence and intelligence is not mandatory to be truth.
It's admirable that we trying the impossible.Mens sana in corpore ETI & Maze

My 2c
We exist in our galaxy, possibly all alone, preferably not :)
If there is only one life bearing planet in each galaxy,
considering the vast number of galaxies in the universe then their is a lot life out there somewhere,
The distances involved are so great we may never comunicate with them or meet them
Nobody will ever convince me that they don`t exist somewhere out there.